In the News

January 15, 2015 | Last year was full of data breaches. From JPMorgan Chase to Sony to Apple nothing seemed safe. Not your credit cards. Not your iTunes account. And President Obama seemed intent on addressing concerns over the ruptures Tuesday when he indicated that he would send a package to Capitol Hill to tackle some key cybersecurity issues. Among…

January 6, 2015 | Seven years after President George W. Bush signed the Honest Leadership and Open Government Act (HLOGA) into law and then-Sen. Barack Obama, (D-Ill.) declared it to be “the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate,” a joint analysis by the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Responsive Politics suggests the effort may have misfired. A key…

July 15, 2014 | In 2004, Randy DeLay was asked by the commissioners of the Port of Brownsville, Texas, to justify his $25,000 monthly lobbying bills. Why was he submitting such high travel expenses for what appeared to be junkets? DeLay, the younger brother of then-House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas), explained to them that lobbying is expensive work, especially when you’re trying to…

June 17, 2014 | Since the beginning of the 2014 campaign cycle last year, 14 donors — running the gamut from a hedge fund manager to a gay rights activist to a little-known Salt Lake City venture capitalist — have given $100,000 or more to President Barack Obama’s avowedly un-campaign committee, Organizing for Action. Another 26 have ponied up…

June 11, 2013 | Last week's revelations that the U.S. government was collecting data on millions of phone calls made through Verizon and running an Internet surveillance program targeting foreign nationals via major online corporations, make it almost inevitable that the issue of electronic privacy -- already a hot topic in 2012 -- will vault to near the top of the lobbying charts in 2013. Even before the recent news of government snooping made headlines, a number of bills impacting privacy and cybersecurity had already been introduced this year.

April 27, 2012 | In an era when Republicans and Democrats can agree on almost nothing, one issue in the last three months has been providing common ground: rewriting the rules of the Internet. Privacy and free speech advocates have unleashed a groundswell of outrage as they've rushed to rally the public against the measures. But corporate backers of the proposals have fought back hard.

April 20, 2012 | SOPA is still warm in the grave, but here comes CISPA, a bill that would mean corporations could turn over info about their users to law enforcement without a court order. Privacy advocates are outraged and trying to stir up support before next week's House vote. Companies lobbying on the bill have given lots of money to its original sponsor, Republican Rep. Mike Rogers.

September 12, 2011 | Twenty-three corporations -- including AT&T, Exxon Mobil, Kraft, Coca-Cola and Koch Industries -- compose the ALEC's "private enterprise board." On the national level, these companies have been mustering a juggernaut of lobbyists to target congressional initiatives and donating extensively to a number of candidates.

August 25, 2011 | Three dozen members of Congress held stock in Apple in 2009, the most recent year for which data is available. That makes it one of the most popular assets among all congressional investors.

June 15, 2011 | Instead of today, 76 House representatives will sometime this summer release reports on their stock, bond and mutual fund holdings, as well as investments in real estate, ownership interests in private companies and cash, according to a tally by the Center for Responsive Politics.

January 31, 2011 | Two of the guests invited by President Barack Obama to watch his 2011 State of the Union address with his wife were business executives who have also been heavily involved in the world of money in politics.

August 31, 2010 | FORMER BUSH ADVISOR THE NEW FACE OF GAY RIGHTS?: Ken Mehlman may have headed Republican George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign the same year the president backed a constitutional amendment to ban marriage for same-sex couples, but today Mehlman finds himself in a more personal role on the opposite side of the issue.

May 5, 2010 | Both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee have programs to help fund and support vulnerable incumbents. The DCCC runs the "Frontline Program" and the NRCC the "Patriot Program," and the increased financial support facilitated by these programs may be a determining factor in these candidates' success at the polls. So far this cycle, the average House Democrat participating in such a program took in took in nearly $600,000 more than the average non-assisted House member, and the average NRCC-assisted Republican collected about $200,000 above the non-assisted House average.

April 16, 2010 | With Massey Energy employees contributing nearly $37,000 to federal politicians and committees so far this cycle, might any of the beneficiaries of this cash share President Barack Obama's harsh view of the company?

October 21, 2009 | Democratic incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives that their party views as potentially vulnerable raised an average of $842,400 since January, while Republican incumbents in the House viewed as potentially threatened raised an average of $597,300, the Center for Responsive Politics has found. Furthermore, these Democratic lawmakers ended the third quarter with an average of $646,000 in cash on hand, while these Republican congressmen ended the quarter with an average of $434,300.

October 16, 2009 | An initial Center for Responsive Politics analysis has found that sitting members of the U.S. House of Representatives raised $48.2 million from July 1 through Sept. 30, 2009, based on the 336 reports we have in. The mean amount these lawmakers raised was $143,640, and the median amount was $126,680.

September 15, 2009 | A number of lawmakers have requested that insurers disclose their financial records, including details on executive pay and entertainment expenditures. Members of three of the committees to receive this information have also collected millions from these companies for their campaigns.

July 9, 2009 | Over the past three weeks, Capital Eye has contacted members of five Capitol Hill committees responsible for drafting health care reform legislation this summer. Here are their responses (and non-responses) and the money they're collecting from various industries.

June 25, 2009 | Here's a cool tool that brings together data from various parts of OpenSecrets.org to show how much money each current lawmaker has raised from various health-related industries and the health sector overall since 1989 (including President Obama's haul).

February 12, 2009 | The close ties between Rep. John Murtha and a Washington lobbying firm raided by the FBI have put the powerful Pennsylvania Democrat under greater scrutiny. The lobbyists at PMA Group have been Murtha's fifth most generous campaign donor over time, but he is just one of 284 members of the 111th Congress who have collected money from the firm, which specializes in securing federal earmarks for its clients. In total, PMA Group's employees and its political action committee have given current members of Congress $3.4 million since 1989.

September 23, 2008 | The last time Congress seriously debated how to regulate the financial industry, the result was legislation that allowed the nation's largest banks to get even larger and take risks that had been prohibited since the Great Depression. A look back at that debate, which was over the 1999 Financial Services Modernization Act, reveals that campaign contributions may have influenced the votes of politicians who, a decade later, are now grappling with the implosion of the giant banks they helped to foster.

September 11, 2008 | When the federal government announced two months ago that it would be seizing mortgage buyers Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, CRP looked at how much money members of Congress had collected since 1989 from the companies. On Sunday the government proceeded with the takeover and we've returned to our data to bring you the updates, this time providing a list of all 354 lawmakers who have gotten money from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (in July we posted the top 25).

July 24, 2008 | Oregon venture capitalist Craig Berkman owes his investors $28 million in civil damages for misappropriating their money. The investors, however, haven't yet received his cash-but lawmakers, including presidential candidate John McCain, have. And if other politicians follow McCain's lead, they'll be dumping Berkman's tainted political contributions as soon as they can.

March 15, 2007 | Fuel-efficiency standards for vehicles haven’t changed since the 1980s, but the climate on Earth, and on Capitol Hill, has. By Lindsay Renick Mayer March 15, 2007 | After nearly two decades of static fuel-efficiency requirements, executives from leading auto manufacturers defended the current standards Wednesday and told Congress their companies are addressing global warming, rising…

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